BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s state planner and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) have signed a memorandum of understanding for further cooperation on semiconductors, state media China Daily reported on Tuesday.

The agreement between China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the world’s top memory chip maker was signed on Friday and focuses on chipmaking, artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing, the China Daily report cited an unidentified NDRC official as saying.

In December, the China Daily reported that the NDRC was paying close attention to a recent surge in the price of chips used for long-term data storage in phones and could look into possible price fixing by the manufacturers.

The newspaper said on Tuesday, however, that the agreement with Samsung had “nothing to do with the price rises in storage chips.”